Like Fine Powdered Glass
by D-chan
Summary: OrphenMajic :: postseries :: The hotel was rumored to be cursed, but none of them believed it until Majic fell mysteriously and violently ill. It must be either coincidence or the place truly IS cursed... Unless there's another thinly veiled reason?


**:: Like Fine Powdered Glass ::**

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen

Disclaimer: I don't own Sorcerous Stabber Orphen or any of the characters mentioned.

Rating: PG-13/R

Pairings: Orphen/Majic

Warnings: OOCness, shounen ai, angst, language, detailed gore, deathfic

Translations: _Ware wa iyasu, shayou no shoukon:_ I heal thee, scar of the setting sun (healing spell)

_Oshou-sama:_ master

_Aa:_ the sound "ah" or the male "yeah"; female would be _ee_

_Anou:_ um, er, uh, etc.

_Oyasumi:_ short for "oyasumi nasai", which means "good night"

_Ne:_ a way of asking for agreement; "right?"

_Honto ni:_ really?

_Iie/Iya:_ no

_Hai:_ yes

_Naze/Doushite:_ why?

_Sou (ka?):_ (is that) so

_Da-re:_ who

_Arigotou:_ thank you

_Gomen (nasai):_ I'm (very) sorry

_Kirei:_ pretty

And probably more I've forgotten... ^^;

Notes: Gah, the ending was KILLING me. I'm not certain I'm COMPLETELY happy with it, so you tell me if you think I can do better and I'll try to revise it sometime, okay?

Glass clinked in time with the clapping thunder outside, lightening throwing whitish light across the hotel lobby and dining room. Hardly a soul was there, as rumors of it being cursed had been floating around for the past few years. One person didn't seem to mind the rumors, though; a young man -- perhaps boy would have been a more appropriate term -- that couldn't have been any older than seventeen sat at a table. Upon first glance he appeared calm, but then a loud crash of thunder made him start. He appeared embarrassed with himself, especially when the hotel owner shot him an amused glance.

"Thunder frighten you much?" the middle-aged woman asked, a strange smile on her lips. It unnerved him a little, but not much. She was naturally strange, always making anything that could bring her good luck. Nothing seemed to work, in his opinion, but he kept silent.

"Maybe just a little," he admitted sheepishly, giving her a faltering smile in return.

She eyed his now-empty glass, a single straw protruding from the clear cylinder stained with streaks of white. Tiny bubbles gathered at the bottom, left over from the earlier bubbly drink. "Would you like that refilled?"

"If it's not too much trouble," he replied, smiling at her in thanks as she whisked the glass away and disappeared into the nearby kitchen. "Thank you," he called.

She didn't answer until she came back out minutes later with a fresh glass filled with a pale greenish fizzy liquid, one scoop of vanilla-flavoured ice cream floating on the top. "Not at all, dear. But if you don't mind my asking, why do you have that every single day?" He'd been staying there for over a week, unwilling to leave for some odd reason. He was quickly running out of money, too, although she had graciously offered to cut the prices in half. He had tried to insist, but she did it anyway, clearly too kind for her own good.

For some odd reason a pale pink rose in his cheeks and he quickly glanced away. "_Anou_... No special reason, really..."

"Hm..." was all she murmured in response, giving him an odd look.

Then, to both their surprise, the front door swung open. Rain splattered in through the open door while one smallish figure streaked inside, shivering and hugging herself for warmth. The other was clearly annoyed and slammed the door shut behind him.

"I **told** you, we should have stopped an hour back at the **last **town--"

"Don't put the blame on me. I didn't _ask_ you to come with me, did I?"

"But we were **partners**--"

"Since when?!"

"--And I thought it would be fun!"

"You thought that three years ago the first time you decided to tag along, didn't you?"

"But... But that **was** fun!"

"Really? I couldn't hear it over your excessive whining of how **boring** that trip was."

The woman looked a little unsure of herself, clearly wondering if she should interrupt the bickering pair. The young male sitting near her elbow had completely frozen and was staring at the newcomers in complete shock. Finally, the older male arguing with the female glanced his way, his words dying from his lips. Tense silence followed as the girl followed his gaze and three pairs of eyes locked -- or two, rather. The two young men were staring at each other, the petite girl left to watch them both.

Suddenly a broad grin crossed the older man's face and he walked over to the clearly younger one, clapping him on the shoulder. "Majic, what a surprise!"

The blonde boy now known as Majic started at his touch, practically ripping away from it. He stood and took a couple steps back, glancing over at the women uneasily. "Orphen-- Ah... _Oshou-sama_..."

"_Oshou-sama_?" the middle-aged woman murmured, shooting the older man an odd glance that no one else really noticed.

"A... _Aa_..." Majic said slowly. "Forgive me, Miss... These are old friends-- An old friend of mine and my _oshou-sama_..."

"You have room, ne?" Orphen was asking, completely ignoring his two blonde companions. "It's practically hailing out there."

"Of course," the woman said graciously, suddenly all smiles and the perfect hostess. "Please, make yourselves comfortable while I go fix up a room for each of you."

Majic seemed eager to escape. "Aa... It **is** probably getting late," he agreed. "I'll just go to bed now... _Oyasumi,_ Cleao... Oshou-sama..." With that he simply disappeared, practically darting for the rooms.

The hotel woman seemed amused, shaking her head. "So much like her," she murmured as she wandered down the same hall the blonde former apprentice had run down. "So much..."

Orphen and Cleao were left alone, the former looking skeptical and the latter annoyed.

"Majic sure has changed a lot," she muttered, snatching up the drink the former apprentice hadn't bothered to finish. "_Ne_, Orphen?"

"Hm..."

"_Honto ni_?" Majic sounded surprised and interested, watching the woman flit around the room as she tidied up before he went to bed. Despite his insisting he could handle it himself, she insisted right back that he allow her to do as she pleased with her hotel.

"That's right," she said, glancing at him. "She looked just like you... Right down to every strand of hair." She curled a lock of the sun-kissed strands around her finger, causing Majic to blush in embarrassment. He hadn't bothered to cut his hair since the last time he had seen Orphen and Cleao one year ago, so it now fell almost to his shoulders. She stepped back, an almost pained look on her face as she watched him. "You two could have been twins... Her male counterpart."

"Was she a sorceress?"

"_Iie_," was the surprisingly sharp reply.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, sitting down in his bed. "How old would she have been?"

"About your age."

Majic chewed on his lower lip, contemplating whether or not he should ask. _'Probably not,'_ he decided as the woman left soon after she was finished. _'It'd be rude to ask how her daughter died...'_

"_Ne_, _Oshou-sama_?" he said aloud to no one in particular. He had the bad habit of doing that, seeking his former master's approval for his thoughts. It was silly, actually. Certain circumstances had arisen, making it necessary for Orphen to take off on his own. Cleao and Majic had gone their own ways shortly afterwards. In all honesty, Orphen was the one that brought the adventure, just as trouble seemed to cling to Cleao. Majic personally thought he had simply been a pest during that time, as his own magic had been severely lacking in pretty much anything that would have made it useful.

"_Ne_ what, Majic?"

The blonde youth started. He felt color rise into his cheeks; he'd been so distracted he hadn't noticed his former master's presence, even though he was leaning against the doorframe quite obviously.

"_Anou_..." he stammered, unsure what to say. What **could** he say to the man that had once been his master without sounding stupid? An entire year had affected him a lot more than he'd realized at first and now he found himself very uncomfortable before him, despite he had grown to be lax around Orphen during their journeys together. "I was just thinking about what Rowan-san told me about her daughter."

"Oh?" Orphen walked in -- uninvited, naturally, but that was Orphen for you -- and lazily made himself comfortable on the bed Majic was sitting on. He stretched out, looking utterly relaxed, before his amber eyes slid over to his former apprentice. "What about her?"

Blue eyes fixated their gaze outside a window almost determinedly. _'Don't get excited. Do **not** get excited,'_ the blonde sorcerer kept telling himself firmly. "Just that I reminded Rowan-san of her late daughter. She says I look a lot her, _Oshou-sama_."

"Tch. You don't have to call me that anymore," Orphen said in response to the honorary, though he didn't sound like he minded at all. It had been ironic, actually, when he had demanded that Majic call him 'master' when he took him under his wing, as he'd rarely taken time to actually _teach_ the smaller youth anything.

"I'm sorry," Majic said, fists clenching in his lap as he glanced at his former master. _'He hasn't changed at all... Not at all... He's exactly the same.'_ He wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing.

Orphen ignored the apology, propping himself up on one elbow. "You know who you remind **me** of right now?" he asked calmly, smirking.

Majic's heart jumped, as though on its own violation and he had to swallow before he could speak. "W-Who, _Oshou-sama_?"

"Hartia," was the answer. Hartia had been Orphen's friend and classmate while the older sorcerer had been a student at the Tower of Fangs, a prestigious magic university. Majic vaguely remembered him; he remembered shoulder-length, dusty reddish hair and slanted golden eyes. Along with Orphen's answer came a light tugging of the fine shoulder-length blonde strands. Majic found himself blushing, again unwillingly, so he stood and walked over to the window, hoping against hope Orphen hadn't noticed. It was a useless wish; Orphen noticed everything.

"How is Hartia-san?" he asked, trying to change the subject, even if it was only a slight change.

Orphen shrugged, even though Majic's back was to him and the blue-eyed sorcerer couldn't see the gesture. "All right, I suppose. I saw him a couple months ago and he seems fine. Why?"

"No reason, _Oshou-sama_," he said quickly, hoping to close that subject as well. He frowned faintly at the rain splashing on the dirty glass of the framed window, absently reaching up to tug on his hair. He'd definitely have to cut it; he didn't want Orphen to think of someone else when he looked at him. He wanted to be noticed for himself, for being Majic, the former apprentice, student and companion, even if that apprentice had been a pain to the older sorcerer.

"Hm." Orphen sat up, using his hands to support his torso as he watched his former apprentice carefully. Pale hands were nervously wringing a black cape, not unlike one a student of the Tower of Fangs would wear. He could see a glint of silver reflecting in the dark window, but it wasn't coming from his own pendant. It seemed Majic had gotten one of his own. Staring intently at the window, Orphen could see the faint outlines of Majic's face, and the younger sorcerer looked uncertain, embarrassed, determined and helpless all at once. He'd have to help the boy feel more at ease.

"So what have you been doing for the past year?" he asked casually.

Startled at the abrupt question, Majic turned around to look at his former master. Orphen could now clearly see the metallic pendant dangling from the blue-eyed sorcerer's neck, a dragon-shaped beast perched atop a rather pointed cross, wings spread and tiny talons on those wings clinging to a thick silver chain. Majic followed his gaze and reached up to finger the pendant, a habit Orphen himself had acquired since he'd 'borrowed' Azari's necklace. "Oh... This. _Aa_, I went to the Tower of Fangs for a while," he admitted.

"_Naze_?" Orphen asked, feeling slightly cross. Majic knew he wasn't particularly fond of that school, and anyway, Majic had turned them down once before to follow Orphen on to their next adventure.

Slim shoulders rose and fell beneath the cape as his grip on the pendant tightened. "I don't know. I suppose I wanted to better my skills and because a little more like you, O-_Oshou-sama_." The sudden stammer didn't escape unnoticed by the amber-eyed young man, but he chose not to comment. Instead, he smirked faintly.

"Did you betray them to be more like me, too?" he asked in an almost teasing voice. Color rose in the blonde youth's face.

"I left because... I wanted to go out on my own," was the reply as the boy delicately stepped around a direct answer.

"_Doushite_?" Majic felt himself growing embarrassed again, which was really stupid, he told himself angrily, as he was seventeen years old now and should have been acting **much** more maturely. He settled for a barely noticeable shrug of his shoulders, avoiding his former master's gaze. Orphen could see the blonde youth was still uncomfortable and he was starting to think he knew **why** he was so uneasy. He decided to jump right on the subject-- With a little bit of subtlety, of course.

"_Sou_, did you go back to see that Deep Dragon priestess, then?" The mention of Fiena made Majic start and his wide blue eyes darted up to meet his former master's sienna-coloured gaze. "Didn't you?" he pressed. "I thought maybe with some time to yourself..."

"... _Aa_..." Majic admitted, bringing one hand up to nip on a fingernail. "However... I just... I didn't feel anything this time..."

"Why not?"

"I..." Majic flushed, this time unable to tear his eyes away from Orphen. "I... Have sort of had my eye on someone else," he confessed, face reddening more with each word that fell from his lips.

Orphen hid a smirk, nearly confident now. "_Da-re_?" he asked mildly, standing up with practiced casualty. "Cleao? Anyone I know?" he asked after Majic shook his head in a negative frantically to the first guess. In a way, this was sort of fun, watching his former student become more and more flustered as he neared the truth. It was probably going to take more trouble than it was worth to force him to verbally confess, however, so...

"You know I won't leave you alone until you say it," he said quietly, smirking as Majic stared at him with a half-horrified expression. "So it's not Fiena or Cleao... I'm assuming I know them. Mariabelle?"

"_Oshou-sama_, don't," Majic pleaded quietly. He had the sinking feeling Orphen already knew; the older sorcerer just wanted to force him to say it. Orphen was generally a nice person, but he could be teasingly cruel sometimes.

"Hm," Orphen said thoughtfully, leaning closer to pin Majic with his eyes, his smirk unmistakable. "I wonder... Really, Majic, it's not nice to keep me in suspense like this."

"I... I..."

Orphen paused, rocking back on his heels. "If you don't trust me enough, just tell me."

Majic appeared offended by such an accusation. "It's not that! It's not like that at all!"

"Then?" Orphen turned to face the same window Majic had been earlier, vaguely interested in the splashing raindrops on the dirty window. He shot his former student a sideways glance, eyes slitting lazily yet purposefully, giving the flustered and edgy youth an all-knowing look that seemed to work perfectly.

"All right!" Majic cried, hands flying up to hide his burning face. "All right! It's you, okay?!" Unable to force himself to look at his former master after that, he missed the triumphant smile that lit Orphen's features.

"_Sou_..." Majic's fingers twitched as his hands dropped to his side, clenching into painfully tight fists. "Majic..."

"_Hai_?" He sounded so miserable, Orphen almost felt sorry for teasing him like that. Quite honestly, though, he didn't mind. It was often normal for a student to look up to his superior and develop deeper feelings for them. Had that not happened to him with Azari?

Of course, he didn't feel completely bad. Especially not when he tilted the younger sorcerer's head back and kissed him. Majic barely had time to whisper a surprised "_Oshou-sama_."

The kiss was brief and, to Majic's surprise, it had felt merely... Simple. Not mind-numbing, not sweeping over him so powerful it made him feel weak... Sensations he's always heard girls speak of hadn't come. Oh, sure, there was the faint tingle on his lips that reminded him it had, indeed, been a **male** that had just kissed him, but that was it.

Orphen seemed to be reading his mind as he smirked. "What were you expecting?" he asked calmly, jabbing a finger into the younger sorcerer's chest. "You're a boy, Majic, so don't expect to feel what girls do. They're more sensitive to emotions like that. No matter how pretty you are..." The blonde one blushed faintly at the off-handed compliment.

"_Oshou-sama..._ Why did you do that?" he finally asked when he could speak again.

Orphen shrugged. "Because you wanted me to. Because I wanted to. You're easy to read."

The dull painful feeling Majic had been feeling in the pit of his stomach since before Orphen had followed him to his room was beginning to worsen. Fearing it was apprehension for something his mind couldn't grasp at the moment, Majic inhaled deeply to attempt to steady himself.

Which was a mistake.

A sharp pain jabbed him from deep within. He gasped; the pain was enough to make him tremble as he slowly sank to his knees, hand fumbling to grasp something for support.

"Majic? What's wrong?" Orphen was asking sharply. He couldn't answer; this wasn't emotional pain at all. Something hurt inside... Something seriously hurt, like thousands of knives were shredding him apart slowly.

"... Hurts..." he managed to whimper, hands applying pressure just below his ribs as he attempted to quell the pain that way. He saw tanner hands in his line of vision, then an incantation.

"_Ware wa iyasu, shayou no shoukon._"

The pain lessened some, but there was still a throbbing sensation, similar to what he had felt earlier. Grimacing, Majic glanced up to see Orphen staring at him skeptically. "I..."

"Lie down," he said abruptly. "And don't move. That didn't help, did it?"

Majic stood slowly, hesitating. "I-iie, it--"

"Did it work it didn't it?" his former master interrupted tensely. In this case, it was clear lying wouldn't help.

"It lessened the pain," he said quietly, easing down onto the bed.

Orphen nodded once and turned to leave. "Lie down and rest. You might just be sick."

Somehow, both of them knew the other doubted that.

And it turned out both of them were right. Shortly after Orphen had left, Majic, exhausted from the recent events, had fallen asleep. However, the other three current residents were awaken by screams later on in the night.

"**ORPHEN!**" Cleao shrieked moments before the said man had caught up with her and Rowan in Majic's room. The blonde sorcerer was clearly in pain, his breath laboured as he writhed in pain on the bed. Rowan was attempting to calm him down, but even her soothing words could do nothing to lessen the pain. Disgusted, Orphen shoved her aside and stood over his former pupil.

"_Ware wa iyasu, shayou no shoukon_." After a few moments Majic went limp, gasping for breath. Sweat gleamed on his pale face and he hurriedly wiped it away with the sleeve of the robes he hadn't bothered to remove before rest, clearly embarrassed at waking them all up. "_Gomen nasai_," he whispered.

"What happened?" Cleao asked worriedly, clinging to what looked like a familiar small puppy... Only this puppy had grown quite a bit in the past couple of years, and it was nearly too big for her to be carrying. She was clearly used to it, though.

Majic groaned softly, his azure eyes sliding shut. "I don't know... It's just this pain inside... Like I've swallowed a million daggers."

Rowan watched, saying nothing the entire time. Then, to all their surprise, she turned on her heel and practically fled the room. "What's wrong with her?" Cleao asked, surprised and annoyed at her rudeness.

Majic tried to cover for her. "Well... She says I look like her late daughter. Perhaps... It's some kind of disease and her daughter died of--"

"You're not going to die," Orphen said tightly, startling both of the blondes in the room.

The younger sorcerer faltered. "I didn't say..."

"You're not going to die," Orphen repeated before he, too, stormed out. Majic stared after him sadly, while Cleao was clearly miffed.

"Honestly! Both of them, so rude," she muttered, setting the puppy-like creature named Leki on the floor. "Don't worry, Majic, I'll stay with you if it'll make you feel better."

Majic smiled weakly. "_Arigotou_, Cleao..."

Elsewhere, still fuming, Orphen was wandering aimlessly through the small hotel. It was so **stupid**, he thought vehemently, for Majic to be so pessimistic. He'd always been the careful one, yes, quick to realize the downsides of a situation, but he usually balanced that by being optimistic, believing that somehow it could be righted.

So long as Orphen was there. But not even Orphen's magic had worked, so the boy was clearly distressed and trying to embrace his fate willingly.

That was what pissed him off. Growling under his breath, he walked into a room without realizing someone else was there for a good few seconds. Then he stopped abruptly and took a closer look at what Rowan was doing. She was standing in a corner, her hands grasping some sort of stick as she slowly moved it in what appeared to be a "mixing motion", like she was churning butter or mixing pancake batter.

"What... Are you doing?" he asked incredulously.

Rowan started at his voice, but her smile was sweet, if not slightly strained and perhaps even false when she looked at him. "I'm grinding rocks," she said cheerfully.

He blinked several times. "... Grinding rocks?" he repeated slowly. Clearly, the woman was crazy.

"If I sprinkle the powder outside, it will bring good luck," she explained.

Scoffing at such childish behavior, Orphen shook his head and left the room again. Great. Now there would be **two** weird women to deal with.

And a mysteriously ill Majic on top of that...

"_Ware wa iyasu, shayou no shoukon._"

Orphen was feeling slightly drained, but taking another glance at Majic, he knew it was nothing compared to what the younger sorcerer was feeling. He'd been using that exact same spell nearly every two hours for the past three days. It did nothing to stop or rid Majic of the pain, but it did, at least, ease it for a short while.

Paler and even a little bit thinner than he had been a couple days ago, Majic was far from concerned about his personal well-being. "_Oshou-sama_, I appreciate you doing that, but you're just going to end up straining yourself," he protested tiredly.

"Do you really want to die?" was the icy reply. When Majic didn't answer, Orphen went on. "I don't fucking **care** if it drains me a little. It helps, doesn't it? You would have died from sheer pain days ago if I didn't do this."

Majic had no response to that. It was probably true, he realized as Orphen walked out. He knew him well enough to guess he was either going to go outside for a walk to calm his tense nerves, or to lie down to rest his tired body. As great a sorcerer as he was, tending to Majic like that constantly was beginning to wear even him down, and Majic feared that would only end up hurting him.

The thoughts were banished, however, when Cleao passed by only minutes later. "Cleao?" he called.

She poked her head in, smiling cheerfully but with a touch of sympathy she tried to hide. "_Ha~i?_" she practically sang. She was trying to stay cheerful since everyone else seemed to become so quiet as of late, so she had clearly taken it upon herself to bring about happiness into whatever room she happened to be in at the time.

Tugging at a lock of his sleep-mussed blonde hair and trying to ignore the dull ache in his stomach, Majic smiled somewhat nervously. "Could you do me a huge favor and... Cut my hair?"

She blinked at the odd request. "Cut your hair?" she echoed.

"_H-hai_..."

Under any other circumstances, Cleao might have taunted him a little, told him to get a REAL servant woman to do it for him, but she simply nodded and fled, returning moments later with a particularly sharp pair of scissors. Majic flinched uncontrollably; he gleaming metal made him think about the stabbing pain in the pit of his stomach.

Mistaking his reaction, Cleao scowled. "I'm not going to hurt you," she said irritably, jerking a comb through his messy hair and making him wince in actual pain.

"_G-gomen,_ Cleao..."

Silence fell over them while Cleao quickly untangled his shoulder-length hair. "Like before?" she asked, referring to how she remembered him as. Understanding what she meant, he nodded.

It was probably nearly half an hour before she was finished, as Cleao painstakingly took her time to make every strand even. She didn't do too bad a job, she was pleased to note. Without the hair framing his face, Majic did look a bit older and... Well, honestly, more male.

"Done," she said brightly. Majic stood, despite the sharp pricks coming from within, and made his way to the small dresser mirror. He smiled, looking suddenly happier than he had since she had seen him again.

"_Arigotou,_" he said, sounding as happy as he looked. "It's perfect, Cleao."

Slightly unnerved by the reaction, but her ego clinging to the praise like gold, she beamed. "Of course it's perfect! I have many talents that you, Majic, have yet to discover!"

He shot her a dry look, sapphire eyes dancing with faint amusement. "Aside from the uncanny ability you had of popping up out of nowhere?"

She pouted momentarily. "Hey, I was a child then," she said, waving her hand carelessly. "I'm a full-grown young woman now, still craving for adventure and excitement!"

She **was** a full-grown young woman now, Majic thought as he was forced to lie down again when the pain began to become too much for him to continue standing. So then... He'd always believed his master was straight, looking towards the female gender only. Majic was certain he'd know if Orphen had kissed Cleao; the woman would either have still been reeling in delight right now or fuming mad since he wasn't one to openly show affection the way she would want.

So then... Why hadn't he kissed Cleao?

It was something Cleao herself had used to wonder, but a year of separation had done something to quell those rampant emotions. With Majic trying to drift off into sleep (the only time he truly couldn't feel the pain, though it would wake him up screaming every day) and Orphen God only knew where, she decided to do a little bit of exploring herself.

Most of the place, she was disappointed to note, was that of a typical hotel. But just when she thought there was nothing there to truly interest her, she cracked open one door and was shocked to be nearly blinded.

Stepping into the room, she let out a cry of surprise and delight. The entire room was made of shelves, and on every single shelf were jars of sparkling crystal. Sunlight through a small window to the wall on her left made the finely crushed crystal sparkle and gleam.

"_Ki~rei,_" she breathed happily.

Her delight was short-lived, however, when she attempted to pick up a jar. "What are you doing?" a sharp, cold voice snapped, making her nearly drop the jar in her hand. Rowan was in the door, looking pale, shaken and angry.

Cleao laughed nervously. "Ah... Well... I was just wandering around, and I really just happened to stumble into this room--"

"How much do you know?" Rowan hissed, making Cleao raise both eyebrows at the sudden danger her body seemed to radiate.

"What?" she asked blankly, unable to think of another response to the bizarre question.

"You know what's in these jars?" Rowan asked, once again sharp.

Cleao blinked then flashed the smile that misled many to label her as an immediate "ditz". "Crystal?" she guessed.

Rowan hesitated then, seeming satisfied with her answer, calmed down and took the jar from Cleao's hand, setting it back on the shelf.

"Nevertheless, this room is off limits," she said, as though continuing a conversation they'd been having. Cleao blinked as she was rudely pushed out of the room. "Remember that," was Rowan's final warning before she disappeared.

Cleao huffed. "What a weirdo..." A smirk played on her lips as a brilliant idea came to mind.

After all, how could the woman miss a single jar amongst the vast many?

Fingers that appeared dark against the paleness of the blonde youth's skin smoothly slid over his stomach as he slept. It wasn't anything ordinary, somehow he knew this. It wasn't just a stomachache that would fade in a few days' time and it wasn't some other illness. He could cure that. No, there was something **abnormal** inside of him... But what exactly, he couldn't be sure.

Majic moaned softly in his sleep. Frowning, Orphen murmured the incantation. The tense muscles beneath his fingers relaxed, and the younger sorcerer easily drifted off again. It had been a good thing, too; he'd been on the verge of waking up.

And what an awkward situation it would have been, Orphen thought with amusement. Especially since it looked very, very wrong to anyone that didn't understand the situation.

Whatever was causing Majic all that pain, Orphen was going to find out what it was and get rid of it no matter what.

That thought remained on his mind all night, even as he was walking down the hallway back to his own room. A sharp, muffled scream jolted him out of his thoughts, especially when he realized it was nearby. He threw open a door near the end of the hallway, where light had been leaking out through the crack at the bottom. He was not too surprised to see Cleao in there, but he **was** surprised to see she was bleeding.

"What happened?" he demanded as she cradled her wounded right hand.

She hissed in pain, blinking back tears. "I don't know," she whispered. "I was just trying to take some of the powdered crystal from one of the jars, just to see what it felt like... And it **cut** me!"

Powdered crystal? Orphen shook his head, quickly turning off the light and leading Cleao to the nearest sink for her to wash the blood off. A gleam of something clear caught his eye; tiny bits of crystal were embedded in her hand.

_'Not crystal,'_ he realized suddenly, searching for a pair of tweezers to remove the tiny specks of clearness from her flesh. _'Powdered crystal won't cut...'_

While being careful to extract each an every teeny shard from her hand -- whatever hadn't washed out was still in her flesh -- Orphen's brow furrowed in not only concentration but deep thought.

This place... It was cursed. He'd known that even before the villagers had told him, but... Rowan, Rowan, he was sure he'd heard somewhere...

"Orphen?" Cleao asked while he wrapped up her still-bleeding hand. He was certain he'd removed every little bit from her hand. "Are you all right?"

"_Iya,_" he muttered, scowling. "Rowan... Where have I...?"

"What?"

He stood suddenly, knocking over the chair he'd been sitting on. Sienna-coloured eyes filled with sudden fury, Orphen stormed out of the room, leaving Cleao no choice but to follow.

They were both surprised to find Rowan in Majic's room, talking as she poured him a teaspoon of the medicine she'd been giving him since he's mysteriously fallen ill. It didn't look like medicine either of them had ever seen before; it was glittering. Majic didn't seem to notice anything unusual, but then, he hardly seemed to notice anything at all. He was clearly experiencing the unbearable burning pains again.

"You cut your hair," Rowan was saying, surprised.

Majic nodded weakly. "_H-hai,_" he gasped. "I wanted--"

"Isn't it a little early for another prescription?" Orphen asked with casualness that surprised Cleao. Only moments before he had been trembling with anger, but suddenly here he was, the usual confidence firmly back in place.

Rowan started, looking almost guilty. Splashes of thick, crimson coloured liquid spilled from the teaspoon and onto the floor. She smiled sweetly, though, covering her tracks with just as much ease as Orphen.

"I think it will help him get better faster," she said with thinly veiled anxiety.

"I just don't want to see him poisoned," Orphen said, his tone dropping a few notable decibels.

"Oh, he won't be poisoned at all," Rowan said with true sincerity, prepared to refill the spoon.

Something sparked in sharp-coloured mahogany eyes. Before she could react, Orphen had slapped both the medicine and the spoon out of Rowan's hand. She shrieked in surprise; red splattered on the wall, looking like glittering blood. "No more," Orphen snarled at the clearly frightened woman.

"_Oshou-sama,_" Majic protested weakly, sitting up even though it felt like every nerve was being sliced open as he did so. He coughed then, though, hacking coughs that made Cleao cringe. Crimson dripped between pale fingers as the coughs shook Majic's thin frame.

Cleao's eyes widened in realization and she began to scream. "Oh, God he's **bleeding**!"

Gripping the blouse of the middle-aged woman tightly, Orphen narrowed his slanted eyes at her threateningly. "What have you been putting in his food?" he demanded, shaking her roughly enough to rattle bones.

Rowan fell silent, as though she had realized there was no escaping the situation. Tilting her head slightly in Majic's direction, as he gasped for air, trying not to choke on his own blood, she smiled. She looked almost crazy when she smiled like that, and it sent chills down Cleao's spine. It would have done the same to Majic, no doubt, if he were looking at her.

"Glass," she murmured. "Finely crushed, powdered glass. It's perfect, the perfect, painful way to kill..."

Disgusted and furious, Orphen was about to demand she explain herself when Majic began to cough up more blood. Instead, he dropped her on the ground, said sharply to Cleao, "Make sure she doesn't go anywhere," before his hands hovered over Majic, the all-too-familiar incantation passing his lips. The coughing eased, though blood stained Majic's robes, hands and mouth. He looked like some sort of dying vampire, but at least he had stopped bleeding.

"Move as little as possible," Orphen snapped before turning on Rowan again. She sat still on the floor, like a child waiting to be punished. "Explain yourself. I think I have a fairly good idea what's going on, considering the rumors, but I think he deserves to hear it from the woman trying to murder him," he said, gesturing to Majic. The blue-eyed sorcerer was watching with hopeless confusion, trying to make sense of the entire situation.

Rowan looked up, eyes flashing with sheer hatred. She would, by no means, keep silent. It was as if she had been wanting to tell someone for the longest time, and now she had the perfect opportunity; people demanding to know... Even if she clearly hated those people.

"Sorcerer's are evil," she said. "My daughter... She looked just like you did yesterday," she said, now only looking at Majic. "She was beautiful... Every man loved her. Beautiful, talented, insanely perfect... It was unreal. She had a rebellious streak, though, and when I warned her to be cautious around sorcerers, she did exactly the opposite. She might have slept with every sorcerer that came passing by.

"A few years ago, when she couldn't have been more than fourteen, one sorcerer came to stay. She flirted with him... Oh, how she flirted with him, though he was six years her senior, and he enjoyed it, returned her playful affections..." Rowan's eyes widened; she was no longer looking at Majic, but into the distance, as though she were seeing everything all over again. "... And then, just two years ago, he killed her in the worst way possible. He stole her soul, leaving her body behind... But, no, he couldn't leave her looking peaceful. He had to tear her up, chew her flesh, claw her pretty blue eyes out, leaving only tissue and bone behind..."

Cleao was very pale by then, shuddering in horror. Majic appeared fascinated, even as he looked pained and sympathetic at the same time. Orphen listened to the entire tale without emotion, simply staring at the woman.

"She could have been much, so much," Rowan was murmuring. "Beauty, talent, she had it all... She had it all... She would have been successful in her mother's footsteps; in my footsteps... Yes, she would have made me so happy and proud...

"She had a fascination with blood, a sick fascination that I never understood until she died. I vowed to kill every sorcerer and sorceress that crossed my path. She used to tell me, knowing it horrified me, that she wanted to die from hemorrhaging; internal bleeding. She would tease me, taunt me, saying she wanted to feel the shreds of pain, cough up mass amounts of blood, taste the copper in her mouth..." Rowan's eyes were misty, clouded, and Majic was wiping the blood from his mouth, as though trying to get away from the exact taste the insane woman was talking about. "So... I decided they could die the way she always wanted to."

Orphen finally spoke up. "So you weren't crushing rock for good luck, you were grinding glass. And that's powdered glass you keep in that room."

As though realizing she had said too much, Rowan bolted to her feet. "You can't prove anything," she said, teetering on the edge of hysteria. "All the villagers here hate me, they know I'm already eccentric--"

"You're not eccentric, you're fucking crazy," was the cold response. "Cleao, go next door, get someone, anyone, to handle this woman. I won't let her leave..."

"_Oshou-sama_?" Majic asked a few hours later. Rowan had been... Taken care of, so to speak, and Cleao had locked herself in a room, claiming she needed time to sort everything out. Both of the sorcerer's could tell she was still shaken up by the gruesome tale, not to mention the crazed-looking Rowan, and neither had bothered her for the entire two hours.

"Hm?"

Majic glanced down at his hands that now pink from scrubbing to furiously to wash off the blood. His face was a little tender as well, and his robes were soaking in a basin. He was wearing a shirt that hung on his thin frame and pants that were a couple sizes too big. Orphen sat on the windowsill, head resting on his knee as he observed the boy with utter calm.

"... Am I still going to die?"

Orphen hesitated in answering, the answer hurting him almost too much to say. "I can't think of a way to extract all that glass," he admitted. "That's why my magic could only subdue the pain, you know. The glass was cutting you; I could heal the cuts, but then it would start all over again."

Majic nodded, tears glistening in his azure eyes. He wiped them away quickly, not wanting Orphen to call him a baby, and took a deep breath. "I see." His hands tightened on the sheets covering his lap. "I guess I never really believed I'd die," he admitted.

"... _Sou ka?_"

He nodded, blonde hair falling in his eyes with the simple movement. Both of them were silent for a few minutes before the bed shifted with the weight of another body. An arm encircled his shoulders and Majic allowed himself to be pulled close. Fingers hesitantly stroked his hair, losing the caution when he didn't resist.

"I like your hair better this way," Orphen finally said.

Startled by the odd and abrupt change of subject, Majic blinked and glanced up at him, shifting slightly to do so. "_Doushite?_"

"You look like yourself," was the offhanded reply.

A good answer, thought Majic with the faintest of smiles on his face even as the stabbing pains began to start up again. Well, if he had to die, this was the best way to go. Not with glass stabbing him with every movement he made, like Rowan's daughter had wanted, but filled with content.

It was nice, then, that he fell asleep with the soothing feeling of Orphen's hand gently stroking the fine golden locks on his head, lulled to sleep. It was nice... Even if he didn't wake up again.

**:: Owari ::**


End file.
